


Cedric Diggory and the Many Deaths of Harry Potter

by NutterForButter



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Crack, Canon-Typical Violence, Cedric Diggory Lives, Cedric Diggory-centric, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Harry Potter-centric, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-15 21:07:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28944882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NutterForButter/pseuds/NutterForButter
Summary: Based on this reddit prompt:Basilisk venom and Phoenix tears should never mix with good reason. This becomes all the more apparent when Harry "dies" during an accident in the great hall. Instead of dying he bursts into flames and a very confused looking baby crawls out of the ashes and a week later he's an adult.https://www.reddit.com/r/HPfanfiction/comments/hj011t/basilisk_venom_and_phoenix_tears_should_never_mix/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
Relationships: Cedric Diggory & Harry Potter
Comments: 6
Kudos: 38





	1. Harry dies

**Author's Note:**

> I meant to write crack, but it might be a solid mixture of crack and serious stuff. I'm going to alternate between Harry and Cedric's POV. If not, I'll fix the tags.  
> I cannot for the life of me, find any copies of the series at home, so it may be a while before I update, since this is an AU of sorts.  
> Excerpts and quotes from Rowling are italicized and in bold.
> 
> To those of you who read my other story. I'm sorry. I am writing it still, but very slowly, for the same reasons as this one. I need to get my hands on the original source material because I cannot remember what being in the classroom was like. Gosh, I feel old.
> 
> I know what the prompt says, but Harry obviously doesn't die in the middle of the Great Hall. He dies in the ...

_Graveyard of Little Hangleton_

_1994_

Harry and Cedric landed with a **whump!**

Harry, as usual, had landed in a heap on the ground, and was trying not to be sick. Cedric had landed as gracefully as one would expect from an athlete. He held a hand out to Harry, who took it gratefully. As he stood up, **_from far away, above his head, Harry heard a high, cold voice say, “Kill the spare.” A swishing noise and a second voice, which screeched the words to the night: “Avada Kedavra!”_**

 _ **A blast of green light blazed through Harry's**_ peripheral vision as he pushed Cedric down to the ground. Harry felt like there was fire in his veins, and ash in his throat. He could not breathe. He could not see.

“Cha-cha,” Harry said. “Chaaa-dddeeee,” he tried again, this time blowing a raspberry in his attempt to say Cedric.

The boy in question looked down at Harry, whom he held in his arms. Was Cedric always this tall? Or did Harry shrink?

Cedric looked horrified, confused, incredulous, and of course, terrified. He had just narrowly avoided the killing curse after all. “Harry, why are you _a baby_?” he whispered. 

_What?_

“Wormtail,” the high voice called. “Bring the boy here.”

Cedric hurriedly wrapped Harry in what were presumably Harry’s school robes. Harry thought Cedric did a bang-up job swaddling him while trying to evade Pettigrew. He was very comfortable. Cedric also carefully supported Harry’s neck as he scurried behind a large tombstone. He quickly disillusioned them.

“They’re not here, my lord!” the second voice whined.

“Well, find them!” the first voice insisted, annoyance leaking into his words.

Cedric looked at Harry with wide eyes. Harry thought perhaps Cedric was attempting to communicate with him telepathically. Well, that won’t work, Harry thought. 

Harry brought both hands to his mouth and tried to mime drinking from a vessel. It didn’t work very well considering he was as weak as a newborn baby. 

Cedric looked alarmed. The older boy looked between Harry numbing at his own hands and his own breast. 

_Wait, did Cedric think Harry thought Cedric had breast milk?_

Harry wanted to slap his own face. He tried. 

Cedric brought Harry’s face close to his own. “I don’t know if you understand me, Harry, but you need to try not to move. Otherwise the disillusioning doesn’t work,” he whispered.

Harry tried to roll his eyes. How was he going to explain to Cedric that they needed the Triwizard Cup to go back to Hogwarts? Clearly, Cedric had lost his wits once he realized someone was trying to kill him and Harry, and Harry became a deadweight.

Harry could hear Pettigrew bumbling around in the dark. At one point he cursed, and thumping could be heard. Presumably, the traitor had stubbed his toe, and was hopping on one leg.

Harry put one hand on Cedric’s wand. The older boy glanced down briefly, before looking away once more. 

_Perfect_ , Harry thought. He put his other hand on Cedric’s wand. He screwed his eyes shut, and did his best to think _accio Triwizard Cup_ as loudly as he could.

They heard a gasp from Pettigrew. Shortly after, the Triwizard Cup flew towards them. 

Cedric had no choice but to rapidly adjust everything in his arms and hands. Harry went entirely into Cedric’s left arm, with his hand supporting Harry’s neck. Cedric’s right hand let go of his wand as he caught the Triwizard Cup to avoid it thwacking he and Harry in the chest and face, respectively.

Harry saw a flash of red light as the graveyard disappeared. 

They landed with a thump back on the ruined quidditch grounds. The crowd was unimaginably loud for poor baby Harry. 

“Cedric, my boy, what happened? And where is Harry?”

All around them, people kept saying, “Where’s Harry?” or “Who’s the baby?” or “Blimey, did Diggory turn Potter into a baby?” 

Cedric ignored it all. He spoke to Dumbledore only. “Harry took the killing curse for me,” he said.

Harry thought he saw Molly Weasley fall in a dead faint.

“He turned into a baby instead of dying. I don’t know why, sir, but he saved my life. I think he summoned the Triwizard Cup too, with my wand no less!--while I held him and my wand. That’s what got us home--it’s a portkey, sir,” Cedric continued.

Cedric must have dropped the Cup so he could adjust Harry in his arms because Dumbledore’s blue eyes were now twinkling down at Harry. 

_Harry?_ he heard.

 _Is that you, Professor Dumbledore?_ Harry thought. 

_It is indeed, Harry._

_Oh, thank Merlin! You can read minds. Wait, you can read minds!??_

That was Harry’s last coherent thought before he fell asleep and woke up as a toddler in the hospital wing.


	2. Trauma

_Harry_

Harry woke up with a gasp. Then another. Then he was bawling his eyes out, and next he knew, there was a strange warmth down in his nether regions. Oh. Oh dear Merlin, Morgana, and Mordred. Did he just soil himself? Harry was pleasantly surprised to find that he could manage his body well enough to kick his blankets away from his lower body. He rolled, put his arms down, and … oh! Oh, he could sit up by himself! And his neck could support itself! 

Hang on. He was getting distracted.

Harry patted his own bum, and confirmed that yep, he was wearing a nappy, and he had soiled himself. This was when he became aware of bedside visitors. He swung his head up. Well. “Shid,” toddler Harry said. The girl he fancied sat by his bed. 

Yes, Cho sat by Harry’s bedside. Next to Cedric, her boyfriend. Harry wanted to disappear into a hole and never reemerge. He attempted this by shuffling back under the sheets and blanket, and burying his head under his pillow. 

Cedric was laughing softly, and Cho was giggling. Harry stuck his face out of his nest, glaring at the two upperclassmen. 

“Oh my goodness, isn’t he just adorable, Cedric?” Cho squealed. She reached out, and to Harry’s great displeasure, _pinched his cheek_.

Harry scowled. 

Cedric patted Cho’s arm. “I don’t think he likes that, Cho,” he said.

Harry shook his head emphatically. 

Cedric smiled kindly at him. “How are you feeling, Harry?”

Harry smiled at Cedric. Wait. No, this was his rival-in-love! He crossed his arms and glared at Cedric. 

“You don’t feel well, Harry?” Cedric asked. He leaned over in his seat and placed a hand on Harry’s forehead. He put his free hand on his own head. “You don’t feel warm. Does something hurt?” 

Harry tried to push Cedric’s hands off him. The operative word here was _tried_. Cedric was a full grown wizard, while Harry was just a baby. “No!” Harry shouted. 

Cedric and Cho both jumped. After recovering from the shock, Cho murmured something about going to see if she could find Madam Pomfrey. Cedric stayed, though. Harry was getting sadder by the second. It felt like he had peed himself a little more.

“Cehh-dee, ga waa,” Harry said, starting to sniffle. His breaths started getting shorter.

_Cedric_

Cedric didn’t know what was wrong. He was an only child, and the youngest of his cousins. What did Harry need? Did he not feel well? Also, Cedric wasn’t entirely sure, but it had sounded like Harry had just tried to say his name. Could Harry understand him? Was Harry an actual baby, or only physically a baby, while mentally still a teenager?

Harry was starting to whimper now. Cedric recalled what an older cousin with children once said. Babies like to be held. Right. He could do that.

He picked Harry up as Harry’s whimpers devolved into sobs and tears started pouring. 

“Nooo! Nooo! Dahh!” Harry cried. “Gaa waa, Ceehh-deh!”

Cedric started pacing up and down the aisle, jiggling Harry gently. “Shhh, it’s okay, Harry. I’m here. You’re safe. I’ll protect you. I promise I’ll protect you,” he said. He started humming a lullaby.

_Where in the world has Cho gone? And didn’t Madam Pomfrey all but live in the hospital wing? How was Harry’s shrieking not bring her wrath down upon them both?_

His arms shifted, and he realized Harry’s bum felt a bit … was that moisture? “Oh,” he said. “Harry, do you need a new nappy?” he wondered.

Harry had started to quieten when Cedric started to hum. He was getting agitated again, though. “No!” Harry said. His little fists hit Cedric’s shoulders and chest. “No! NO! NOO!”

“You’ll feel a lot better after I get you into a fresh nappy, Harry,” Cedric said, trying to console Harry. 

Harry continued to scream and hit him. It didn’t hurt since Harry was a baby and Cedric was a grown man. He walked back to Harry’s bed and looked around. He tried the drawers of the bedside table. Aha! 

Cedric grabbed several from the stack. “It’s going to be okay, Harry. Look, I’ve found the nappies!”

This only seemed to make Harry sob harder. He started kicking Cedric on top of using his fists. Cedric hurriedly pushed Harry’s bed linens aside and lay Harry down on the bed.

As soon as he set Harry down, Harry tried to crawl away. Cedric caught him and lay him on his back again. He had to keep one hand on Harry’s belly while he studied the nappy. 

With one hand, he grabbed a clean nappy, and tried to fold it. It wasn’t easy. He finally got it folded to what looked like the right width.

Now for the harder part. He hesitantly undid one pin and slowly peeled it back. Oh shite. There were more folds. He pinned the flap again while he adjusted the folds of the clean nappy. Harry was still trying to roll over and escape. Cedric almost felt bad. He hoped for Harry’s sake, that Harry wasn’t mentally fourteen years old.

Once he was reasonably certain the clean nappy was folded correctly, he inhaled deeply, exhaled, then resolutely upinned both sides of Harry’s nappy. Harry responded by flailing his arms and kicking. Cedric ignored it. _He’s just a baby, Cedric. He needs to be changed_ , he told himself firmly.

Cedric lifted Harry’s bum and removed the wet nappy. He got the clean one under Harry and examined the wet one. All right! He had folded the clean one mostly correct. He missed only one double fold. 

Cedric rummaged around in the drawer again and found a wet bag. He tossed the wet nappy in. Looking at Harry’s damp bottom, he frowned. He grabbed a small square of muslin and wet it so he could wipe Harry down. Then he cast a drying spell.

“There, Harry. We’re almost done,” he said, grinning. Harry had quieted by this point, and looked tired. Cedric wondered if he was going to fall asleep again. His fingers slipped and the flap of cloth flopped back onto the bed. Harry fidgeted, and Cedric bit off a curse.

He readjusted Harry’s nappy and reached for the pin again. 

Almost as if in slow motion, Cedric noticed two things. First, Harry giggled. Second, his penis lifted. Cedric lunged over and tried to fold the front flap of the nappy over Harry’s pelvis to catch the pee. 

He missed.

Harry did not.

Cedric stood there, blinking, in shock. Harry giggled and clapped his hands together. 

This was the scene Madam Pomfrey and Cho walked in on.


End file.
